Meet the glimins: Poxel raises €13m

19.12.2012 - Poxel has successfully closed a Series B financing round. A big share of the €13m will go into the research of glimins, a new anti-diabetics class.

This pill tastes like sugar. Investors of French Poxel SA believe in the biotech’s oral anti-diabetic drug and invest another €13m in a Series B round. Poxel from Lyon announced the news on 18 December. The financing, led by Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners (EdRIP), included all existing investors such as the InnoBio fund managed by CDC Enterprises within FSI France Investment programme and Omnes Capital (formerly Crédit Agricole Private Equity). According to the press release, a significant part of the funds will be used to confirm efficacy data of the company's lead programme, Imeglimin. The drug is the first in a new Tetrahydrotriazine-containing class of oral anti-diabetics, the glimins.

Poxel was established in 2009, when German Merck KGaA merged with Swiss Serono. The company’s platform are those drug candidates for metabolic diseases that Merck-Serono elected not to continue. In 2010 Poxel raised €16m. Now, with refilled pockets, the small company is about to bring Imeglimin through Phase II trials as a monotherapy and as an add-on therapy to the main anti-diabetic agents, starting with metformin and sitagliptin. However, a crucial Phase IIb study starts in early 2013, when Imeglimin's efficacy profile as a monotherapy treatment will be evaluated in a large six-month trial involving 400 diabetic patients.

Imeglimin has a mitochondria-based mechanism of action, targeting the respiratory chain. It acts on the three key defects of Type 2 diabetes, inhibiting hepatic gluconeogenesis, increasing muscle glucose uptake and restoring normal insulin secretion. Thierry Hercend, MD, PhD and Chairman of the board believes that Imeglimin has the „potential to become a new anti-diabetic standard treatment.”

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